Day 14 - Lyme Regis - Rest Day

Accommodation - Lyme Townhouse

Weather - Sunny and warm

After a breakfast of indulgent pancakes with berry compote and maple syrup we set off to the laundromat which was in an obscure, back lane on the eastern side of the town. The lady managing the facility kindly offered to do our washing and drying and this gave us an hour to do some exploring in the town. 

We walked to the far western side of the town along the promenade to the Cobb. As it was a sunny Saturday morning there were many out strolling, having coffees and sitting in the colourful deck chairs on the stony beach.

The sea was calm and the walk along the harbour wall was a very pleasant one. It was hard to imagine the high winds and seas which featured in “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”. I pretended to be Meryl Streep on The Cobb. 

When we returned to pick up our washing it wasn’t quite finished. The laundromat was now closed to undertake contract work for the local accommodation facilities so we filled in time by walking to the nearby local church. As we walked through the churchyard, and to our surprise, we found Mary Anning and her brother’s combined gravesite in the church yard. 

We continued walking and sat on one of the many benches on the high cliff behind the church and overlooked the town and the English Channel. It was a glorious day. 

When we returned to the laundromat the lady had kindly folded all our washing and put them in our bags so our morning job had been an easy one for us. We walked back to the townhouse through the backstreets reading the names of the houses as we went by. There were some very pretty houses.

Following a late morning tea we went to the privately-owned Dinosaurland Fossil Museum. The name was a disincentive to visit but the reviews were good and we were pleased we went. The museum is housed in a Grade 1 listed former congregational church building built in 1750. The owner, a former chief palaeontologist for BP owns and runs the museum and he greeted us at the entry. There was an extensive collection of local marine fossils including the Ichthyosour from the Jurassic period dating back an incredible 250 million years.

We had an early afternoon rest and waited for the tide to go out before heading out to do some fossil hunting and find ourselves an Ichthyosour or a Plesiosaurus below the cliffs known as the Spittles which are on the eastern side of the town. There were many on the beach with little pick axes chipping away. 

I gave up very quickly but Henk persisted for quite some time breaking up the layers of the surprisingly soft sedimentary rock hoping to reveal “a find”. 

Nearby I found a very poor specimen of ammonite lying on a rock and we found some fossil images imbedded in the rocks. I wasn’t too happy being so close to the cliff in case there was a land slip but no one around seemed concerned. A guy showed us his collection and gave us some small belemite so we knew what we should be looking for. These are linked to the modern-day squid. 

We had dinner at the Pilot Boat Restaurant near the beach frontage and we were hungry; we could have eaten a Plesiosaurus as we had skipped lunch after a late morning tea of Victorian Sponge. 

When we walked home we noticed the street lights and realised they had used the ammonite fossil for its design. They looked elegant.

Tomorrow we start walking again and we’ll see how Henk’s heel goes.